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[0:01] Ruthie Fierberg: I'm Ruthie Fierberg, and this is Why We Theater.

[0:06] Ruthie Fierberg: The Intersection of Theater and Social Justice.

[0:09] Ruthie Fierberg: This podcast digs into today's most thought-provoking and urgent onstage works with the artists who made them and real-world experts who advise us on how we can create impactful change in our offstage lives.

[0:22] Ruthie Fierberg: After all, that is why we theater.

[0:27] Ruthie Fierberg: Today, we welcome playwright Jocelyn Bioh and a panel of experts to discuss Jocelyn's School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play.

[0:36] Ruthie Fierberg: For those of you who haven't seen the show, a brief primer.

[0:39] Ruthie Fierberg: Set in Ghana in 1986, the play follows a group of high school girls led by Queen B. Paulina as they prepare for the Miss Ghana pageant scout to arrive.

[0:49] Ruthie Fierberg: When a light-skinned girl transfers into the boarding school, she disrupts the social hierarchy, a la Mean Girls.

[0:56] Ruthie Fierberg: And the pageant recruiter sees this young girl as a ticket to finally get Ghana noticed at the Miss Universe Pageant.

[1:12] Ruthie Fierberg: So I know that in past interviews you said that the play was sort of an amalgamation of three things.

[1:45] Jocelyn Bioh: About that 2011 Miss Ghana pageant? Um, I think I it was actually random. I had learned of the story um some years uh after it had happened. Um, I was in a play uh at Soho Rep in 2014 called Nocturne. Um, and so I was on a very deep dive of like different research about like, you know, um of colorism of um histories of like uh you know different kinds of women living together. I was just on a very, very deep dive um and was curious about like um how colorism really was worked or how it was addressed in in African countries.

[2:33] Jocelyn Bioh: Like I I don't even really know because that's why I do feel kind of like it was kind of serendipitous, you know, some sort of act of God situation um that I found the article, but then I did and um and it was like kind of like a TMZ, like a kind of Ghanaian TMZ like um celebrity website or whatever that was talking about it, and I was like very curious. And then I like went down and continued to Google the story, and I wanted to find out if she had even placed if she had won, and um, and just became really fascinated with the story, um, and then kind of just like logged it away for a couple of years.

[3:08] Jocelyn Bioh: And then um ultimately when I decided I wanted to I got an idea for this play, I knew I could use that as like kind of a a way in to the story.

[3:18] Ruthie Fierberg: Mm-hmm. So then what was the was the original idea just about girls at a boarding school? And then it was kind of attached to this pageant idea?

[3:29] Jocelyn Bioh: It was really both. I knew that I always wanted to write about boarding school, and I was having a really hard time getting um this other play that I had written called Nollywood Dreams. Um, I was having a really hard time getting it produced.

[3:42] Jocelyn Bioh: And so now MCC, you guys were in rehearsal and you were scheduled, and we are crossing our fingers that post-shutdown it will come back because I'm so excited to see it. But I just thought, like, huh, if I like lean into something that people, you know, kind of know or feel a little more familiar with, or the kind of universality of like the high school experience, um, what would that look like?

[4:10] Jocelyn Bioh: And I knew that you know the beauty pageant angle would be you know something fun. So I went a lot of different places with it initially. Um, we used to in the play, we used to go to the actual pageant. Um, some of the girls used to double as um pageant contestants, like you know, it used to be a two-act play. It was like a whole other thing.

[4:31] Ruthie Fierberg: Oh my god.

[4:33] Jocelyn Bioh: And then um, as I continued to rewrite over the years, um, I just was like, huh, I think I might be better off like whittling it down to something you know, simpler, um, in terms of like location and story and kind of truncating all of that. Um, and that's how we eventually got to the play as it exists now.

[4:53] Ruthie Fierberg: So, what was it about your own boarding school experience that you really wanted to highlight and incorporate that felt like ripe for a play for you?

[5:04] Jocelyn Bioh: I mean, I I know obviously a lot of people who went to boarding school, but like it's such a rare thing. Um, and especially people who can go to boarding school who go to boarding school, excuse me, um, with a large group of like POC people.

[5:20] Jocelyn Bioh: Um, my school in particular, I think um, at the time that I was there, it was about 84% or something, people of color, and most of us were first generation. Um, so I had the very unique and odd experience of going to a boarding school with like a bunch of like first gen African kids, first gen um Latina kids, Latino kids.

[5:46] Jocelyn Bioh: Like it was really it was really unique. That was kind of our joke was that like everyone had an every one of our parents had an accent, you know. Um and I just it was just a unique experience being able to be in a boarding in a modern day boarding school that was not like a prep school, not for people who were um who come from you know a one percenter kind of family, our school scholarship based, so everyone went there for free.

[6:12] Jocelyn Bioh: Um it was quite um specific. I also just imagine like the play you could write about this multicultural boarding school, and like all of I mean, what a wealth of culture to have under one roof.

[6:27] Ruthie Fierberg: That I feel like that's a whole separate podcast, but wow.

[6:31] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah, I mean it was, and it was very unique, and I wanted to be able to like talk about as specifically like the relationships that girls have in boarding school, like that to me was like the power dynamics, and who was you know, who was like the leader on top, and um how people kind of ruled by fear.

[6:53] Jocelyn Bioh: I'm just so fascinated because the hierarchy sounds very similar to me from you know, a person who didn't go to boarding school. Things could get very intense.

[7:01] Jocelyn Bioh: I mean, relationships were very intense, best friendships were very intense. I think that's still universal, but um everything, you know, and and because it was a small boarding school, everyone knew your business.

[7:15] Ruthie Fierberg: This third component, like what came from your mother's story that you other than the setting of Ghana that you really wanted to make specific about your story in School Girls?

[7:28] Jocelyn Bioh: Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, I have a very unique relationship with my mom. Um, she's a tough lady, she's a tough Ghanaian woman. You know, she went through um a lot to come to this country.

[7:39] Jocelyn Bioh: And um, and she uh also, you know, grew up uh pretty, you know, had a very unique upbringing as well. You know, she had a very large family on both sides.

[7:50] Jocelyn Bioh: Um, on one side of her family on her mother's side, my my maternal grandmother. Um she had 12 siblings, and then on my maternal grandfather's side, she had close to 30, you know, um siblings or something. He had many, many children with multiple women.

[8:11] Jocelyn Bioh: So she had a very unique experience. She was just very tough, and I think that that could be misconstrued sometimes as um mean.

[8:23] Jocelyn Bioh: And um, and I wanted to be able to like address somebody who needs to move through the world in a certain way, um, and how that could be construed in a certain way, and and kind of like have this a bit of an homage to um someone who's kind of like take no prisoners, you know, doesn't take any um mess from anyone, um, but also has her own kind of heartbreaking story or whatever, like that kind of veneer, that kind of you know, armor that somebody has to put on in order for people not to judge them because of where they come from um is something very specific and I think because we're dealing with we this the show is set in Ghana where everyone relatively is the same uh I wanted to be able to you know talk about this kind of want or desire to be different and that's where I spin off and make it imaginate my my imagination that is not her story she did not struggle with colorism she did not um you know want to you know you want to use or a bleach and cream or anything like that but you know I took facets of what I was inspired by with her story and that and that particular kind of personality and um how to and how to infuse that into this play.

[9:43] Jocelyn Bioh: So yeah.

[9:44] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah rereading the play like part of what blew me away was how you establish this group of girls and the role of you know the role that each of them plays with you know like Paulina as our queen bee and Ama as the star one and you know Nana as the one who like really struggles with her eating and and be Paulina's bullying of her body image and then you have like the two girls of Mercy and Gifty who are just like you know they're just those two bees in a pod.

[10:15] Ruthie Fierberg: And I remember sitting in theater like thinking like God is it really the same everywhere like how does and I know that that was definitely part of your your goal with it.

[10:27] Jocelyn Bioh: I but that's part of it I think is that like you know um we're we're not quite in a place yet where we're mature enough to talk about the real um differences um in uh with with Africa I would say so like you know even me being somebody who's first generation I am you know my Ghana got their independence in 1957 and then my parents came here 10 years later you know and then they had you know my siblings and then me so we are first generation there's a lot of miseducation on both sides you know in America there we're told that one Africa is a country and that it's poor and desolate and kind of you know just full of war rape and AIDS and struggle and strife don't go over there and in the same token you know in I'll speak for Ghana specifically in my particular uh family and some friends you know the education about America is that it's like this a beautiful amazing place and you know every it's a land of opportunity you get treated so well there everything is like amazing and whatever whatever and there's there's a lot of miseducation and I think that that's part of my goal is to kind of really show the universality of the stories that um they're not just uh we we've all have misconceptions about both um places and um there we're a lot more alike um than not so um that's a really important thing for me and I think School Girls was like I it's not the play I thought was going to be my first play to get produced but in hindsight I'm actually really grateful that it was because it totally you know kind of I mean really slammed open the door um of like who I am and what I want to write about.

[12:19] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah, for sure.

[12:21] Ruthie Fierberg: I mean, not only are you painting this familiar picture of the social hierarchy, but it's so interesting to me to hear from the beginning that the play was longer, it had so many more layers because it feels so economical, and yet we see all of these layers of the bullying, the colorism, the classicism, and you really are coming from a place of show, not tell, you know, through these lines of like, you know, we're looking for the pageant for a girl.

[12:49] Jocelyn Bioh: The line is girls who have a more universal and commercial look. And we all suddenly know what that means. You had your own experiences of colorism. If you're willing to share, what did that look like in your life, and then conveying that emotion through these girls?

[13:10] Jocelyn Bioh: Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, it I think for me, and and and colorism and my journey to kind of owning my um beauty as a dark-skinned woman is kind of like a lifelong journey. Um, one I really felt like I had um conquered, I guess is the best word. Um, and that's why I think I was in a place to be able to write um uh a school girls, because I I don't know years ago, I don't even know if 10 years ago when I was just getting out of school, um, that I would have felt even remotely comfortable um kind of being that open and honest about how I felt. Um, so that was important to me. And so I think that that's partially why the things the play does feel more like show and tell. That's why the word colorism is not in there or classism or or anything like that.

I wanted people to just experience what I experienced, see how I felt for literally 30 plus years of my life, whatever I had to offer was immediately questioned. And I felt that in everything. I felt that hanging out with my girlfriends, going out, you know, in college, going out to the club and like the guys who wanted to, you know, dance with my friends and never wanted to dance with me. I felt that in um and when I would audition, you know, I'm also an actor. I felt that when I would audition for stuff and a makeup, like even shopping for makeup, the names of the colors um that I would have to first of all the search for makeup for my shade was like, I mean, it was like of Huckleberry Finn proportions, you know, it was like insane.

And then, you know, I would find the makeup and it would have these like insane names like, you know, um you know dark tar deep something, you know, that like as if you have to like dig and find this thing, you know, whatever. If it felt like somebody had to go on a journey to even find a way to name the thing that I'm gonna put on my face. And it was like, what are we talking about here? And the so like it all feels like maybe small things, but like when when you're feeling that thing every single day um you just kind of question like okay am I not like beautiful am I not desired? And then I've turned all of that into very self deprecating humor of like, you know, oh yeah yeah let's go out let's all go to the club.

I mean, you know, I'll hold y'all drinks because you know anybody dancing for, you know, anybody that asked me to dance, or you know, yeah, I'll just be sitting here, I'll I'll hold y'all coat. Like it was just an assumption before I even walked in that like I would not be desired. I would not be, you know, wanted. And so I just accepted that.

[16:04] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah. And it's important for people, you know, who look like me as I, you know, present as a white woman, um, that I didn't realize until I was in college, and I um had a very dark-skinned roommate because she is of Haitian descent. And it didn't occur to me until we went to the drugstore together, I think it was one time. And like I was picking up makeup, and then I looked and I was like, wait, there's literally one shade for for not even for her, really, for black people. I was like, Yeah, I was like, there likely wasn't even matched her skin.

[16:42] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Yeah.

[16:43] Jocelyn Bioh: Right. So it's important for all people to recognize like this is these are the many things that you're not even thinking about that contribute to the problem and this conception. Um, I mean, I have to admit that like, so when the when Erica, the character who um is light-skinned, comes from America, um, moves to Ghana to be with her father. Um, I have to admit I was surprised that she wasn't seen as an outsider or like not quote, black enough in a world of such dark-skinned women.

[17:18] Jocelyn Bioh: Well, I mean, she is really she's accepted by everybody, really, except you know, Paulina. Um, everyone else is kind of immediately drawn to her and you know, is excited by her in the same way that Paulina can't help what she looks like, neither can Erica. And like that's part of it. That's why there's really no at the end of the play, there's really no like solution where I'm like, hey, here's how colorism gets solved. Like I have no idea, you know, other than people recognizing it. I think the moment Erica walks onto the stage, she is an example, at least in this moment, of privilege. Like we just even you could hear it in the audience. Like as soon as they would see, even if you're somebody who was white, you know, and didn't understand what colorism even was, as soon as they saw Erica walk on, they all would make uh have a reaction. And I'm like, that is it. That is it. What it forces us to acknowledge ourselves.

[18:12] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Exactly.

[18:13] Jocelyn Bioh: Exactly. And I mean, I have I mean, there were, I mean, I was fascinated to learn about like, you know, uh, there was an older Jewish woman who came up to me and said, you know, she grew up in a neighborhood where she was like one of the only Jewish people, and she had very dark hair and olive skin. Um, and she felt like an outcast amongst a sea of like blonde, blue-eyed girls that you know, so she went to school with or whatever. Um, I saw that a lot with a lot of um Asian American um friends who came and they were like, please, bleaching cream, and you know, in Korea and China and wherever, um, in India, like it's everywhere, it's everywhere. Not that I didn't know, but like just to see that there was such a connection. But if you could think of one question that you were hoping audiences would leave pondering, what was the question you were hoping they would examine?

[19:05] Jocelyn Bioh: Um, what implicit biases do I have? And how can I actively change them?

[19:14] Ruthie Fierberg: Well, I think that that's exactly what I left thinking about, um, among many other things. But it is the reason why I wanted to have this discussion, and the reason why I would like to welcome in our other two guests, um, Afia Ofori-Mensa, who is the director of the Presidential Scholars Program at Princeton and is a researcher who specializes. This is so perfect, I can't even believe we found her in 2020 to 21st century pop culture, specifically beauty pageantry.

[19:50] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Wow.

[19:51] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah, thank you so much for being here.

[19:53] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Thanks so much for having me.

[19:55] Ruthie Fierberg: And um, Maryann Jacob Macias, did I say your last name right?

[20:00] Maryann Jacob Macias: Did I accent it correctly?

[20:01] Ruthie Fierberg: Exactly right, which almost never happens. Who is the um senior director in National Crittenton, which is an organization that specializes in creating actual social change and systems change when it comes to self-esteem in young girls and young women or women of every age. So thank you so much for being here as well.

[20:24] Maryann Jacob Macias: Pleasure.

[20:48] Ruthie Fierberg: So, Afia, I want to start with you. Um, given your research and your incredible expertise, I want to start with like what do you think of pageantry? What is it important for the average person to know about pageantry?

[21:05] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Because I think there are different reasons that, you know, as Jocelyn's characters like Paulina and Erica have different reasons for even getting near it. I think one of the most important things that I've learned about pageantry over time, and this used to come up in the classes that I would teach about beauty pageants to college students, is I would have them like design a beauty pageant at the end of the semester as their final project.

[21:29] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And a lot of times a question that arose was what is really the difference between, let's say, a fashion show and a beauty pageant? Like what, like if you're creating a beauty pageant, what is it really that you're creating? Like what's at the heart of it? And I think one of the most important distinctions between pageantry and other forms of popular culture that focus on on beauty is that pageantry is always about selecting a single individual to represent a group of people.

[21:58] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And I think the more heterogeneous that group, the more contested the pageant, the results, the person who wins can end up being.

[22:45] Afia Ofori-Mensa: You're not you're not a real Ghanian. Um you're like the Calvin Queen Golden Close Ghanians, you know. Um but then meanwhile, um Eloise is like, this is who's gonna win because at the end of the day, she doesn't have to represent the nation.

[23:05] Afia Ofori-Mensa: She's gotta represent the nation at an international competition that um, you know, I I imagine Jocelyn was modeled after Miss Universe, which is headquartered in the US.

[23:18] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

[23:18] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Um, and that means that the standards of beauty are also headquartered in the US, you know.

[23:24] Afia Ofori-Mensa: So in a manner of that it matters where the where the pageant originates, who the sponsors are, what products they're trying to sell to what people that really ends up costing who the quote winner is.

[23:41] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Right, because it's not just the kind of like idealistic representation of the nation. It's also like you said, it's like, okay, if you know, this is our sponsor this year, um, we've got to make sure that whoever we choose is going to sell their products in the way that they're satisfied with so that they will continue to sponsor us, you know, so that they won't continue to invest money into this enterprise.

[24:03] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And so you have those various kinds of interests at play. On one hand, um, you know, who is an authentic representative of Ghana? And then on the other hand, who's gonna go on and potentially be competitive in this other contest that has nothing to do with Ghanaian standards of beauty or anything.

[24:21] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Right, and put Ghana on the world page.

[24:23] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

[24:24] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And then who's gonna sell the products that the sponsors are trying to sell and satisfy that aspect of things as well.

[24:30] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And so, I mean, I've mentioned this to all of you that um I in my senior year at Barnard, I took a cultural anthropology class, and I have apparently been very interested in beauty ideals for a long time, because that was my thesis paper for this seminar.

[24:48] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Was I was looking at different beauty ideals in different cultures.

[24:52] Jocelyn Bioh: And I mean, particularly among women, there are different practices everywhere, whether it was, you know, foot binding in China or neck lengthening, that you know, women were getting butt implants in certain South American countries because voluptuousness was valued there, that there were all these different standards of beauty.

[25:13] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And I don't think we've gotten to a place where that has completely disappeared, but I do think it seems that we that it has moved to this light-skinned Western European ideal.

[25:27] Jocelyn Bioh: And I'm wondering, like historically, if you're like, how does how does it happen? Is it just because, like you're saying, these big pageants are US-based, or is there are there other things at work as well?

[25:40] Afia Ofori-Mensa: I think it's not only pageants that are US-based, Hollywood is US-based. You know, I think um one of the things, Jocelyn, that you illustrate really well in your play is like they're talking about Bobby Brown and they're singing Whitney Houston's song. That's so much of the pop culture that people um receive and interact with around the world comes from only a small number of places.

[26:01] Jocelyn Bioh: And the US is a huge producer of popular culture that gets exported to other countries. And that means that the kinds of ideals, the kinds of standards, the kinds of norms that circulate in US pop culture um that are, you know, troubling for those of us in the US a lot of times, even if that's a lot of people of color, um, then just get exported to other countries.

[26:22] Maryann Jacob Macias: And then that, you know, that that settles in because the images that we see every day have a real power over what we understand the world to be, over what we understand normalcy to be, over what we think we should look like, you know, like we look at images of other people a lot of times more often than we look at our own faces during the um and so that then becomes kind of reality of what we think ought to be.

[26:48] Maryann Jacob Macias: So, Marianne, is that is that where the connection between beauty and self-esteem sort of lies and is at the crux of it is that this comparison and that we're trying to aspire to the things that we're seeing, and then we're feeling like we're not meeting that, therefore the self-esteem suffers.

[27:09] Maryann Jacob Macias: I mean, I think that's always there for women and girls. I think those um those conflicting messages are so ubiquitous for us at such a young age. Um, you know, stand up for yourself, feel good about yourself. Um don't be um don't be conceited. You know, we're always hearing mixed messages on how we should behave, how we should present.

[27:32] Maryann Jacob Macias: Um, and I have to say my middle school self is so triggered by this conversation right now, but that's good because she needs to come out.

[27:42] Jocelyn Bioh: Oh my god. Um what I find so interesting and probably so obvious to everyone on this um around this conversation is that of course this topic um appeal um is one that it that girls and women specifically are dealing with, right?

[28:02] Maryann Jacob Macias: Men and boys are not dealing as much with with this issue.

[28:06] Maryann Jacob Macias: So it's what I call the relentless expectations of women and girls. You know, it's like we can like we never get it right. There's an endless barrage of what we should and shouldn't be doing.

[28:18] Ruthie Fierberg: And yeah, so you were gonna say something, Ruthie.

[28:21] Ruthie Fierberg: I was gonna say that I mean, then that brings up the question of like why?

[28:25] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah, is that so arbitrary? Is that because of just like I mean, history of women not being earners and their only way to make money is married?

[28:34] Ruthie Fierberg: Like, is that just like the the inherent inferiority of women throughout history that then we capture the one tool that is ours, which is beauty?

[28:44] Afia Ofori-Mensa: I mean, I think it's looking at who the decision makers are, who holds power, you know, who's making the decisions that impact our lives and the lives of girls. It's not us.

[28:56] Maryann Jacob Macias: Yeah, and it's a really persistent and enduring form of sexism and subjugation of women and girls. That um, you know, there's this um scholar Susan Bordo.

[29:08] Maryann Jacob Macias: I read something by her in grad school that just stuck with me forever because she pointed out that at the moments when we start to see significant shifts in gendered power, like bam, right there comes something that refocuses women's energies and attentions on their own appearance and on competing with one another for the attentions of men.

[29:27] Maryann Jacob Macias: Yeah, that you know, so like you know, 1920, we're we're now at the you know, the anniversary of the 19th amendment, you know, average only months later the first Miss America pageant happened at Lakes St. You know, like within the same year.

[29:43] Jocelyn Bioh: Oh my god, that's wild.

[29:46] Maryann Jacob Macias: And then grew to be this phenomenon where you know, like quite literally, women were presenting themselves for the judgment of men.

[29:53] Maryann Jacob Macias: Right at the moment when nationally they had gotten the the right to vote, you know, they had won.

[29:59] Jocelyn Bioh: That's a very long fight.

[30:01] Maryann Jacob Macias: That it's the that's the gut punch reaction to it. You know, it just continues today over and over again.

[30:09] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah.

[30:10] Jocelyn Bioh: Jocelyn, you were gonna say.

[30:12] Jocelyn Bioh: I was gonna say that that's also part of the reason why there's no men in in the play.

[30:17] Jocelyn Bioh: Um they're they're not necessary, they're not needed, but they're kind of like this kind of omnipresent, you know, uh thing in the play.

[30:27] Jocelyn Bioh: Like there's they're discussing boys, they're discussing um, you know, how to look good for them, and um, you know, who has the cuter boyfriend and you know, whatever, like this, they're still a symbol of something, you know.

[30:41] Jocelyn Bioh: Um, and it was just not necessary to even be in the play because I'm like, we as as you see, the power of it didn't even lie at all in some man coming in and judging.

[30:49] Jocelyn Bioh: It was like this patriarchal thing that we as women understand inherently um that when we are in front of men, or you know, what that our attraction is bound in what some man somewhere decided to create, you know, that this is the he he deemed it so that this is the standard of beauty, and if no one looks like said person, then we've we've got an issue, you know, and and how that has now filtered all the way down, obviously into present day, but certainly into these girls in 1986 in the mountains in Ghana, um it's super present in a way that is really frightening.

[31:30] Maryann Jacob Macias: Yeah, and I think one of the things that comes up, I think the moment that I feel the most sadness for Eloise, that character in particular, is when she says, I'm just trying to win.

[31:41] Maryann Jacob Macias: There has never been a woman who's been the head of the Miss Ghana pageant.

[31:45] Maryann Jacob Macias: And I'm trying to be that woman, finally. You know, like that was a really important point for me.

[31:49] Maryann Jacob Macias: That's where it becomes really obvious that, like, really we are subjecting these women to the judgment of the men who own the pageants, the men who serve as the judges, the men who, you know, who have you come out aren't even there.

[32:00] Maryann Jacob Macias: They don't have to be in the frame where we have that kind of power.

[32:04] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

[32:05] Jocelyn Bioh: But that also it just begs the question to me in general, like, what is beauty?

[32:11] Jocelyn Bioh: And I don't even mean like, oh, there's beauty on the inside and beauty on the outside.

[32:16] Jocelyn Bioh: I mean, what external beauty?

[32:19] Jocelyn Bioh: Because it is always like now we're sort of seeing these campaigns of, you know, the Dove Beauty campaign or like Aerie, which is um, you know, the underwear from American Eagle, like they're doing quote real body campaigns and things like that.

[32:35] Jocelyn Bioh: And I put one like all in this effort to say like everything is beautiful, and like on the one hand, I'm like, yes, everything is beautiful.

[32:47] Jocelyn Bioh: And then on the other hand, I'm like, why do we need everything to be labeled with the word beautiful?

[32:54] Jocelyn Bioh: Like, what does it mean? Who are we trying to satisfy? What are we trying to feel with that word?

[33:01] Maryann Jacob Macias: I think one of the things that I've found that that actually is the scariest to me is how many times beauty stands in for humanity.

[33:11] Maryann Jacob Macias: And how many times beauty stands in for um value of all kinds?

[33:17] Jocelyn Bioh: In what way?

[33:18] Maryann Jacob Macias: I was reading the other day a very sad news story about um a 13 year old Latina girl who took her own life some years ago and um was suffering a lot under bullying at her middle school at her middle school of other other children calling her ugly and in the suicide note that she wrote at the age of 13 to her parents she said that um she didn't want her casket to be open because she didn't want anyone to see her at her funeral because she was just and she apologized to her parents for being so ugly and it was a moment in which it like it made it really clear to me that there's like a one to one correlation in that case of like who's beautiful and who deserves to live you know and doesn't that I think that's part of the reason that's so important is because it's a it's a form of value that we attach to things that suggest that that thing deserves to even be in the world.

[34:23] Maryann Jacob Macias: I just heard this morning on um I don't know if any of you listened to What a Day the podcast from Crooked that TikTok had been filtering and banning people who were deemed quote ugly or differently bodied and like just not like pushing their videos to the top they were pushing quote pretty people's videos to the top but um like on TikTok how can you even like everyone's moving and dancing too fast for you to even I mean but this is the prevalence of it right and I mean the thing that you bring up a feel with that I mean with that really terrible story is is the bullying aspect of this.

[35:04] Maryann Jacob Macias: And like the social hierarchy, Jocelyn, that you have painted into this is so familiar to every single one of us that I'm like, what is it about the way that we culture girls that we do this?

[35:18] Jocelyn Bioh: I remember the shift happening in the third grade.

[35:21] Jocelyn Bioh: And I remember then teaching dance class, and I would teach second graders, and then I would move up with them.

[35:28] Jocelyn Bioh: And they were different humans in the third grade.

[35:31] Maryann Jacob Macias: Like, what is it?

[35:32] Maryann Jacob Macias: Maybe Marianne, you can speak to this, that's happening that this is among girls, and that this is not a thing that boys do, even behaviorally put beauty aside.

[35:44] Maryann Jacob Macias: Um, I I mean, I've thought about this a lot since I was 11 or 12 years old, and I think it's taken me this long to realize that I felt so powerless at times, um, and still often do now, just in the larger scheme of things.

[36:02] Maryann Jacob Macias: And I think um power and holding power is just a big part of it.

[36:07] Maryann Jacob Macias: Girls and women have so little power, and what we have we just desperately hang on to, and sometimes unfortunately, maybe that means we wield it against one another.

[36:21] Ruthie Fierberg: So, what do we need to do to because I feel like it starts in the third grade and then that behavior becomes habituated, and we just keep doing it until we finally hit, I don't know, 25 and realize what have I been doing for 22 years?

[36:39] Ruthie Fierberg: Like, what do we need to do? What's maybe something like Crittenden is doing to stop it from the beginning and not even start the cycle?

[36:49] Maryann Jacob Macias: I mean, I think it's so it's I think it's social change, so it's lifting up all of the wonderful, amazing things that girls and women of color do around the world every single day.

[37:02] Maryann Jacob Macias: Um that so few people are, I think, are paying attention to.

[37:06] Maryann Jacob Macias: Um so if you see that as a young, say, eight-year-old girl, you see women uplifting other women, you learn that you that's a behavior to mimic.

[37:17] Maryann Jacob Macias: I mean, and I think girls, you know, there are girls all around the world doing incredible, wonderful, amazing things.

[37:24] Maryann Jacob Macias: And, you know, if we can focus on that a little bit more than um other toxic things, um, I think that'll make a huge difference in the conversation.

[37:34] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Um, it's you know, it's a movement, it's movement building. And I um, you know, I mean, I I go onto Facebook because I feel like I have to, but when I do, you know, I'm I'm I'm really just looking for these young activists around the world, you know, climate change activists, racial justice activists, gender equity activists. And, you know, I I just think about who I was at that age and just how fearful I was at that age of speaking up about anything. So that just makes me realize how far we've come, and yet, you know, their power is still so concentrated in their own hands. And um, I would really love to see these young girls lead, girls and young women, I should say, lead and be in those decision making positions.

[38:24] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah. I mean, it seems sometimes like men came with a different handbook as boys than girls do. Like I was at Women's Day on Broadway, and uh who was it? It was Shelly Williams, who is um a black director who was he was starting out as a performer. I mean, she's the best, right? I love that one. And she was telling the story about how when Aida closed on Broadway, um, she was at the closing night party, and her music director, Stephen Arima said to her, you know, and a group of people, what do y'all want to do now? And she said, Well, I actually kind of want to direct, but I don't really know how to get into that. And he said, You're at an industry party, do the Joe Mantello and tell everyone that you're a director.

And she looked at him like, is that like just tell them I'm a director? And he was like, say you are the thing you want to be. And she looked at him and said, Is that what men do? And he said, of course. And I just and the all of the women in the room were like in shock and laughing hysterically, and all of the men were like, Yeah, obviously. Like, where does like how do we? I don't want to necessarily advocate for women like being quote more like men, because I think there are beautiful things in the differences, but how do we have that more unlimited mindset? Question to the room.

[39:55] Maryann Jacob Macias: Yeah, it's a big question. Um one I'm probably one I think I'm still figuring out for myself, likely. Um but I think it's it's also uh probably knowing and understanding that you have that um that power and that authority. I mean, had he not said that to Shelly in that moment, she didn't know she had it. Now she knows she has it, and how can she empower other people to, you know, um, utilize it um as well? Um, I mean, I guess that's one way. I I I don't know. I think it's a constant uh, you know, navigation and and I don't want to say struggle, but uh that is certainly a word that it's you know, uh feeling like it's right at the tip of my tongue. So yeah, I don't know. I guess it's acknowledging and understanding that there is a power that you have um and utilizing that as best you can in a non-mean way.

And I think knowing that that possibility, not even just the power, but the possibility to do that exists. Until you tell me that story, Ruthie, I would never have thought of that. I wouldn't, you know. So, like, somebody's gotta tell me the story for me to know that that's even a possibility of something that I can do in my life.

[41:10] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And then I think the other side of that is that we've got to start from a very early age, um, you know, just encouraging um girls and women and femmes to like um to embrace that kind of behavior. So, like I think one of the the things that happens very frequently but very subtly is that we have different ways that we treat children whom we think of as girls versus children whom we think of as boys, yeah. And that comes up in all kinds of moments, like, you know, maybe a little girl says, I'm a director, and then somebody else else says, You're not a director, you know, and then she like learns that you're not supposed to yourself something that you are well. Then why would you ever as an adult make that kind of move at an industry party?

It's like lying, and you know, and then lying is thought of as something that's improper and it's you know it's not right to do is it's amoral, and and then she doesn't want to engage in it because she wants to be right and she wants to be good and all these other kinds of things. And so I think that like starting from a very young age, just catching ourselves as we interact with children and thinking about what are the kinds of things that we tend to praise, and what are the kinds of things that we tend to punish, even subtly, and being really really aware of that, and and our us as adults changing our behavior and our approach to those things so that children don't pick up those kinds of messages for 30 years or longer that you are if you are this kind of person, you're supposed to act this way. If you are that kind of person, you're not.

[42:43] Ruthie Fierberg: Yeah. I mean, we're all in agreement, but I see Maryann, like you are it's like in your body.

[42:52] Maryann Jacob Macias: Well, I mean, and I would add to that also in a in an age appropriate way, saying to to girls and young women and um presenting people that young people that folks will try to silence you. People will tell you that you don't belong here, and you know, you do you have a space here, you have a place here, you belong, and I think it's just constant reiteration of that. I also come down to our teachers a lot of the time because I remember um I had not intended to go to a women's college like Barnard. Um, and I remember being in on those info sessions uh when I was thinking about Barnard, and you know, the like the crowd claim there was um your daughter is not gonna be afraid to raise her hand in class.

And I thought to myself, who is afraid to raise their hand in class? That concept was mind-blowing to me because I had always been outspoken, I had always been eager to speak, I had always been called on. I and I think I had a fair amount of female teachers growing up, but I also just had teachers who were calling on me and who were encouraging everyone to be to be called on. So that was actually cultivated in me. And it wasn't until I got to Barnard that I kind of learned, like, oh, the world will try and silence me, I guess. I mean, and definitely experiencing that reality from time to time, but that I think that maybe our our teachers and our uh, you know, choir directors and our athletic coaches and those people, like you're saying, like not even forcing you to claim your space, but giving you space.

[44:46] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Yeah. I think that's incredibly important. I have a tremendous amount of respect for educators at the first 12 level, especially because they just spend more time. I mean, I think as a lot of people are seeing now in this current teachers spend more waking hours with children in a lot of cases than anything else in the world. Yeah. Um, and so they, you know, they have a lot of power. But I think also other people, you know, other people do too. Cultural producers do too. You know, like when I was growing up, I wanted to be an actor, but there weren't any parts for like you were saying before Justin. There weren't parts for dark and black athletes. So, like as a middle school and high school student in community theater, I was playing Tochuba and the Crucible and Viney and the Miracle Worker and the you know, and like always the maid of some kind, you know?

And I was like, Well, there it doesn't seem to be much out here for me. And I would watch movies and television, and there just weren't um there just weren't dark skinned black women other than Whoopi until Lupita came along and Danai came along, and you know, we have we're in a different landscape now, and now there are things that I see come like coming before me every day that helped me to realize that that's another possibility. I think it's the thing about possibility again, you know?

[46:03] Maryann Jacob Macias: Yeah, like more of this kind of work that people do, the more of all different kinds of work that women and girls and femmes do that's publicized, that's like out there that's visible to people, the more that women and girls and femmes believe that they can do that thing, you know, access to the totally, totally what we've been talking about a bit is like the thing that all girls and you know and women experience no matter their color, but obviously, you know, with women of color that changes, and as Jocelyn was speaking to earlier, being dark skinned versus you know, exactly what the play is about, and I don't want to ignore that piece of colorism. And I I need to say like how um powerful in the most devastating way it was to watch Paulina using these bleach creams, like I had no idea about the world of bleach creams, and I even started doing I did a little bit of research, and I found out that in a study from May 2019 in Ghana, um, done with university students, 40.9% had practiced skin bleaching in the past 12 months, and that was so wild to me.

And that 51% of those of that 40% was using it to quote treat a skin disorder but the fact that like people think that bleaching creams help skin disorders or that's what they already present and I'm just wondering like was bleaching a part of the conversation when you were when you were younger is it a part of the conversation now do you know people who do it did you ever consider doing it if you are willing to share that it's a worldwide thing like it's a worldwide um thing that people don't actually see as like something that's bad you know um until someone tells you that is bad or until you like injure yourself and harm yourself um which is you know what I I wanted to illustrate in the play like that is kind of then when you do you know have to make a decision about whether you want to keep moving forward or not but like it's it's bleaching is considered something as casual as going shopping for makeup or you know women trading secret you know beauty secrets about you know what's a better product or what's not um and it is supposed to be used for like spot you know spot treatment um but when folks had you know discover that like oh it can actually be something that really you know changes my appearance in a way that might make me look more um appealing uh that then becomes an issue I um had um when I was younger I did have like some dark spots and I did uh and I was given uh bleach and cream and um used it for the spot treatment.

I never was using it to like, you know, bleach like actually bleach my skin. There's actually no way I would have been able to even successfully do that with that little bottle. So I guess I think that's possibly why I was like, you know, it is what it is. But clarification was not you were not intending to make your skin tone lighter.

[49:25] Jocelyn Bioh: No, but it didn't mean, but I mean, we there was just not enough for me to, you know, but like it didn't mean that I didn't think or dream or have fantasies about like, well, if this could work, you know, if it could, you know, like what would happen then? Um, so there is a real casualness about the way, you know, bleaching cream is used, um, and how people use it, that is that also, you know, is unfortunate, but um makes it a thing where like people don't actually think it's as bad as it actually, you know, is and um yeah, for someone like Paulina's character, especially being, you know, 17, 18-year-old, you know, girl to actually be going to it to use it as something that she thinks is going to actually change her life and and really change her appearance, um is something that's really sad.

[50:17] Jocelyn Bioh: And I wanted to be able to illustrate that, um, in the play. Um, that even, you know, Paulina is poor, her family's poor, and that with even our little bit of money, my mother gave me bleaching cream instead of food because that would quote serve me better in life. The world has already decided, she says to Erica, you are better than me. And that's unfortunately a truism about life, about her specific, you know, uh, the way beauty has been portrayed to her that she has discovered is a truism of life. And like that is, I think the unfortunate thing we know that that's not true. You know, you know. She will hopefully eventually know that that's not true, but that is her truth in that moment, you know.

Um, is it, um, and it it's kind of like it was like a double-edged like writing that it's like how extreme did I want to go with all of this? But I think it was important to like really illustrate someone's really deep, dark, sad thoughts when it comes to something like this. And if there's ever gonna be a moment she would say that, it would just be in this moment, and that's why for really the rest of the play, we kind of that's like the deepest and darkest we can go, and then we pull back out of that. What we really want is for that to not be the goal anymore, and I think that it's that what is what are your proposals, thoughts, hopes of how we widen the spectrum of what is considered beautiful, what demands do we make, and of whom do we make them?

[51:58] Afia Ofori-Mensa: There are two big ones that I think of. I think one is, um, one is just get more different kinds of images out there. Like we consume all kinds of media, and, um, you know, those media instruct how we see ourselves and how we see the world, and I think the more variety there is to that, um, the more we have choices that we can make that we want to model ourselves after this one and not that one, you know. Like, if you were like me growing up in the 80s and there's only one dark-skinned black woman on in movies or on TV, then you don't have a whole lot of choices about who you want to model yourself after that are realistic, you know. And so I think the more we can kind of broaden the spectrum of images that we trade in, um, the more choices everybody will have.

And then there was another thing that, um, there's a I read an article once I think it was Peggy Orenstein, who, um, did all this kind of research on girlhood and beauty. And one of the things that she said she noticed at a certain point is she started observing that when she and other people, um, encountered a little girl, right away they would say something about her appearance. You look so pretty. I love your purple tutu. Look at the day, you know, all this kind of stuff. Um, with a boy, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't say, look at them jeans. How they would, they would wait for the boy to do something, and then they would compliment him on that.

[53:35] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

[53:35] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And I learned so much just reading that, and I noticed that I did the same thing. And so now I try to be really intentional. Like, wait for the kid to do something.

[53:44] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

[53:44] Afia Ofori-Mensa: And compliment them on their skill and their abilities. I even do that with movie photos now. As my friends like send me like their newborn photos, I am so conscious mass would be like, oh my god, they're gorgeous. I say something like, they look so healthy, or like if the baby's looking off, like they look animated, they look in the game. I'm like starting from the earliest possible moment. I know I'm always like, look at your baby, it has such a steady gaze. That's so impressive. But like, you know, I think the goal is too that like, you know, as you were saying, that there was this one image of a black woman, and then you kind of aspire to that, that we get into this place where, you know, I want to live in a world where we can praise natural hair and treated hair if that's what you want to have, where we can praise voluptuous women and twiggy women, where we can have dark skin and light skin, and that you can just that you can just be.

And I'm wondering like, do we think so, in terms of these images and in terms of these, um, like the widening of the spectrum and the hopes for what we want to accomplish? Are we writing to magazines and saying, you know, are we tweeting to magazines and saying incorporate more? Are we speaking with our wallets and only buying the foundation that has a full spectrum on the shelf? And if you don't have a spectrum, I'm not buying from you. Like, is it is it money? Is it petitioning? Is it tweeting? Like, what's the most effective tangible thing that listeners can do to start to move this needle?

[55:25] Maryann Jacob Macias: I mean, I think it's all of that. You know, I think it's our power as consumers, um, in terms of representation. I would say, you know, publishers, right? I mean, children's books, like the books that are in our, um, classrooms and in libraries, you know, um, in bookstores, which books are front and center when you first walk in.

[55:48] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah, Marianne, I saw that you tweeted that, um, article about what was it, that, uh, like children's books with black characters are not just for black children.

[55:59] Maryann Jacob Macias: Right.

[56:00] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah.

[56:02] Maryann Jacob Macias: I mean, that's that that would be huge, you know. Um, like even just that alone, yeah. Would be something really amazing for, you know, if some, you know, young white child is reading Solway, you know, um, and and and how that they too can like have an early education about, um, what they what their implicit bias of beauty is as well, you know. Um, that kind of education doesn't shouldn't just stem or be on, you know, um, uh, opening up the ideas of beauty. Like that's, um, it's problematic, but it it's it's also yeah, it's also something that just needs to be said and addressed. Um, I also think to answer your question, Ruthie too, um, is just also like widening people's understandings of like what, um, beauty is.

The thing about children is that they're also so open to like everything. So if like they were told that every single thing that they're looking at is beautiful and amazing, and like and and that adults or parents or teachers, whomever, you know, were actually having more of an awareness of what they're saying when when children are around, they it they absorb everything, they absorb everything. And that, um, I mean, in particular with children, I think is something that we can we can start fresh. Maybe with these people who are running these multi-million dollar companies that you know are only dis have decided to only push out one standard of beauty. Like I don't know how we can take them to task where it hurts them the most, which is their money.

But you know, in terms of like raising up another generation, it's about us really, you know, widening their understanding. You know, at the end of the play, um, you know, the girls are all watching, you know, the beauty page and at the end of the play, the, you know, they turn up the TV and the announcer saying like, you know, and here are the like, you know, most beautiful women in the world. And even though that's what the girls are watching, the audience who's sitting in in the theater is watching them. And like and when they walk out of that theater, like all of these people now have are now have a different understanding or appreciation for the beauty of these girls because over the course of 75 minutes they got to know them and love them for who they are and that's why they're beautiful. And so if those kinds of things can somehow manifest into people in some sort of way, um, it would really be um an amazing education for everybody. So, you know, here's hoping.

[58:49] Jocelyn Bioh: Yeah. I think that's part of the answer to Ruthie that like, I don't know, it's like this is like a version of a question of a bigger question that I talk to my students about all the time. We're talking about social justice and like we see injustices in the world and what do we do? You know, there's inequality and there's oppression and what can we do? And what I've been saying for the past few years is just find the part that you care about. Like find the thing that you love to do and do that thing in the service of social justice. You know, teach, act, write, run nonprofits, make media tweet, you know, like whatever your thing, raise children, whatever your thing is, just do that thing in the service of working against injustice. Because I think everybody has a role to play.

[59:35] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Yeah.

[59:36] Jocelyn Bioh: And it's really about like where's, you know, where's your own brilliance? Um, and where's your own passion? And how can how can we all put that together toward the kinds of changes that you're talking about?

[59:48] Ruthie Fierberg: Well, it's definitely, I mean, from seeing this play and from rereading it and just thinking about it, it is the kind of thing that I walk out of theater going, okay, what is what is the thing I can do. So I think that from this conversation, it is it is thinking about the shades on the makeup counter. It is thinking about how your dark friend feels when you go out together and making sure that they're fully incorporated into a group. It's thinking about when I talk to little girls and making sure, like you're saying, like we're not just complimenting their appearance, but also making sure that like when you see two girls fighting, you say, uh-uh, like we don't, you know, this power dynamic that we were talking about, that there are all these little ways that the same way you want to tweet when there's no representation, maybe you should tweet in praise when there is, so that are also more not just pun, you know, punishing, so punishing can be necessary, but we're also positively reinforcing to put it in a like psychology majors term.

[1:00:54] Afia Ofori-Mensa: Yeah, totally.

[1:00:57] Ruthie Fierberg: Um, we will leave our listeners with that. And with that, I thank each of you so much for being part of this incredible conversation. You are each such impressive women, and I encourage everyone to continue to follow each of your work, be it on the stage, your book that's coming out, Afia, Mary Ann your social justice change through National Crittenton that's happening. So thank you all so much. We really appreciate it.

[1:01:22] Jocelyn Bioh: Thank you.

[1:01:23] Maryann Jacob Macias: Thank you.

[1:01:46] Ruthie Fierberg: And don't forget to leave a review and tell your friends. Our theme music is by Benjamin Velez. Why We Theater is recorded in part on the traditional lands of the Wapinger and Lenape peoples. I acknowledge this land was unjustly taken from them and pay my respect to elders both past and present. Special thanks to Dory Berenstein, Alan Seales, Lee Silverman, Patrick Taylor, Tony Montaneri, Wesley Birdsall, Elena Mayer, and Suzanne Chipkin. For more resources for change, info about our guests, and more, visit us at WhyWeTheater.com.